


Dignity and Inconsequence

by Azaraethe



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Discussions of Ley-Lines, Gen, Light Angst, Magic, Mystery, Supernatural - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:33:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23576977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azaraethe/pseuds/Azaraethe
Summary: “What will happen if I do not break the line, Lamorak ?”“You will be punished.” Lamorak’s voice wavered as if there was more he had to say.Aglovale receives a long-awaited letter from Lamorak, fore-warning him of severe consequences and an unavoidable fate should the King fail to complete his promises. True enough to Lamorak 's words, Aglovale's punishment begins.This piece is a short excerpt and may connect briefly with other excerpts in the series.
Relationships: Aglovale & Lamorak (Granblue Fantasy)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Dignity and Inconsequence

Excerpt from Canticle of Frost, Encore of Flame

_Nothing will come of nothing_

_– King Lear (Act I, Scene I)_

_Two Weeks Ago_

_My Brother_

_I write this letter amidst times of impending disaster, and I hope you remembered the words I had said to you before I left Percival and yourself._

_I have journeyed as far as the perimeters of our country and beyond the mountains to the other side. The horror I have witnessed here is unspeakable, and I fear if you do not hasten to complete what you have vowed before Mother’s grave, all our preparations will come to naught._

_Focus your energy on the promises you have made to me, brother. The stones of your making must break the King’s Road before winter comes._

_You must send Percival to Mephorash. It is the only way to keep him alive._

_With virtue, love, and faith  
_ _Lamorak_

The letter was written with a scrawling hand, the curling ends of each alphabet and glyph casually flourished, the ink dark and indented into the inexpensive parchment. The handwriting bespoke of the sender’s personality - flamboyant charm juxtaposed with a hard-bitten worldliness.

Aglovale’s fingers stroked down the papery edges of the letter, re-reading every line once more. He stood, stiff and still, facing the wide-open windows of his private study, his gaze lifting bemusedly upon skies of surging pewter. A distance away, the mountains were prematurely wrapped in sluggish gray as a storm roiled forth. 

How long had it been?

The blond man tilted his head at the sullen landscape outside his window, his eyes wavering in a moment of contemplation. He folded the letter with care and pressed back into its battered envelope. The broken wax seal on the back of the envelope was poorly imprinted, a tell-tale sign of a worn-out signet ring. He lifted the envelope to his lips to press a melancholic kiss upon the shattered pieces.

His memory wandered back to the night before Lamorak departed. And the quiet, nearly reverential moments the two had shared in Lamorak’s former chambers. Rooms that Aglovale secured with the heaviest of locks upon Lamorak’s departure the next day.

Aglovale was shown a future amongst many possible futures that night, and as Lamorak’s magic brought them forth to places that made Aglovale cry in anger, or weep for mercy; the King knew he had few, if not, absolutely no choice in the finality of their fates. He had not felt such despair ever since their mother’s passing, nor such desperate need to save those whom he loved. 

And he would be punished for the choices he had made.

Wearily, Aglovale placed the letter into a plain wooden chest, amongst the other letters Lamorak had written. And every message took longer than its predecessor to reach him. He dreaded the day the letters would cease their arrival. 

Had he not been an exemplary King? A sterling example of a ruler?

Would his mother have praised him for all the achievements he has thus achieved so far? 

Or smiled with pride at how dignified he looked now?

Wales was thriving, and the pockets and bellies of his people were lined and full. He eventually realized a country’s destiny was determined by more than raw might, brute strength, or iron-clad ideals. For Aglovale, it was a paradigm shift with much inexorable difficulty, and to have his sensibility schooled by someone whom he had always regarded as a child, would have been immeasurably humiliating.

The blond man smiled dryly to himself. That child had grown up. 

The King lapsed into pensive preoccupation, a faint smile curling his thin lips, and his hands clutched the ornate sill of the window. The sky had turned charcoal, and the clouds hung low, thickening over the turrets and towers of the town around the castle. The rain was heavy and torrential, like wicked stones pelting upon the land. A spat of lightning flung itself from the clouds, striking a vast expanse of silver birches that lined part of the King’s Road, and thunder chased, deafening and cacophonic.

He did not hear the doors of his study open, and the two messengers who had hurried in, calling him in anxiety, prostrating in distress.

“Your Majesty!”

“My Liege!”

He turned swiftly, away from the window, his sights cast sternly upon the two men kneeling on the ground. They were disheveled, their hair bedraggled, dripping with rain and fear. 

“The dam, your Majesty. The dam east of the King’s Road!”

Aglovale's eyes flared, his expression grew unsettled, and he broke away from the window, stepping forth in long strides to the cowering men. They raised their heads, their faces pinched white with fright, and their teeth chattered. He glanced for a moment, outside the open windows again, as another bolt of lightning split churning wild vortexes of storm-clouds. 

Alarm quailed his gut and dread slithered like serpents, curling around his spine. Was this the first of all his punishments Lamorak had divined? His hand gripped the hilt of his sword, and he started forward, stalking past the trembling men, and he broke into a frantic run from his study.

The dam east of the King’s Road was his first attempt to engineer independence for his country. The reservoir fed a ravenous slew of agricultural lands and provided water to the farming communities. A breach would be cataclysmic. The complete devastation of the farmlands which supplied the granaries of the west and north, which would keep his people fed through Wales’ harsh winter.

Perhaps he did underestimate the power of the ley-line, he thought ironically. He had once mocked Lamorak’s theory behind the dragon nodes and insisted fervently that any with the blood of their House would be able to control such power. The King’s Road, the Road of Kings, ran straight on such a ley line, from the great gates of the castle to the Wales Cathedral, and reached the northern glaciers. 

The second prince had cautioned against an unchecked allowance of such a line. If uncontrolled, Lamorak warned, the energy built up along this path would eventually collapse upon itself, becoming a danger to all, living and dead. 

The ley-line must be throttled. 

Indeed, Lamorak had threatened, even implored. And Aglovale had not listened. 

He ran, his heart aching as he remembered Lamorak’s words.

Kings did not run. Yet, never had his legs moved faster, swifter than he'd remember.

_“You must break the King’s Road, do you understand?”_

_Lamorak’s hands had covered his, hands that were faintly scarred by magic gone astray. A couple of his badly tanned fingers were bandaged, burned by a recent experiment, but they gripped Aglovale’s hands with gravity and determination._

_“Cut the stone from the mountains and bring them here with your own hands. The same stone we buried Mama in.”_

_Aglovale had stared at his brother, crimson eyes locking upon crimson. Lamorak’s handsome and carefree face looked strained and worried._

_“Build one circle three leagues away from the cathedral, and another seven leagues before the glacier.”_

_He did not remember agreeing. He had argued the Road was necessary, the ley-line should be kept strong, and not broken. But he remembered asking the consequence._

_“What will happen if I do not break the line, Lamorak?”_

_Lamorak’s hands tightened fiercely over Aglovale’s hands as if attempting to keep his elder brother from falling into an endless chasm._

_“You will be punished.” Lamorak’s voice wavered as if there was more he had to say._

_“What else?” Aglovale had pursued, a frosty undertone lacing his voice._

_“You must send Percival away.” His brother edged closer, his breath uneven, his eyes frantic._

_“Why?” He asked though he knew the answer. Aglovale would rather hear it spill from Lamorak’s lips._

_“So, he can live.”_

It was common knowledge that the spirits and ghosts of long-past were drawn to a ley-line’s energies. Even peasants and the uneducated heard and spread such tales and rumors. And mortals would only dream of harnessing the power of a ley-line.

Aglovale knew the procedures from his father’s books and the research that was previously kept in the underground laboratories and libraries, a knowledge that was debauched and corrupted. He was relieved now all that was gone. The broken walls and collapsed vaults below the castle stayed to remind him now and then of his foolishness and stupidity.

No one knew what a terrible wish Gahmuret had harbored. The old King wrote it in a journal that Aglovale kept secreted away from his younger brothers. It was a wish that grew into an insane obsession. Gahmuret intended to feed the souls of his people to the ley-line, fulfilling his demented desire to summon Herzeloyde back from the dead. His eldest son had inherited his magic, and along with it, his father’s terrible sins. His youngest son unwaveringly held onto the memory of his mother and would have been a sacrifice if not for Aglovale’s intervention.

And for this, Aglovale bore silently the burden of this knowledge alone. 

The King finally found himself outside the castle, and he was immediately flanked by his frost guards ready to join their liege’s impending departure to the eastern dam. The rain was relentless, pouring down on him and his men. The cold streaks of icy water rolled down the silvery curves of his spaulders, and his cloak was completely drenched, the velvet folds turned a dark deep blue. But the cold did not bother him. An officer had brought his horse forth, a sleek and muscular white Akhal Auguste, saddled, and bridled for the journey east. 

Aglovale swung himself up the horse, gripping the reins with his damp gloves. The beast snorted, pawing the ground restively with its hooves, and blew white smoke from its heaving nostrils. With a command shouted to his guards to depart, the King whirled his mount forth. 

His hands slacked around the horse's reins as a man's voice yelled from within the castle hall, halting the procession. A tall slim figure, dressed in ceremonial silver and red, rushed into the storm.

Percival held up a gauntleted hand, shielding his eyes from the heavy rain.

“ _Aniue_! I am going with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This excerpt is part of a longer multi-chapter fiction involving the Wales Brothers, namely focused on Aglovale and Percival. Lately, writing shorts seem to be much easier to toss out all the insanity about the fates of these three handsome brothers, *rubs temples.


End file.
